wtf fun fact

WTF Fun Fact 12756 – Roadless Giethoorn Village

If you’re headed to The Netherlands to visit the Dutch village of Giethoorn, don’t bother renting a car. There’s nowhere to drive it.

Most of Giethoorn is traversed by boat along its canals. Of course, if you need some more exercise, there are paths for pedestrians and bicycles.

Visiting a fairytale in Giethoorn Village

Many call it a “fairytale” village, in part because of the thatched-roof houses and beautiful views. But it’s also incredibly quiet without any automobiles adding to the noise pollution.

The village is a collection of small “peat islands,” and those islands are connected by bridges (but they’re still not roadways). It is believed to have been founded in the 12th century and named in the 13th century.

According to National Geographic (cited below): “The story goes that its original farmer-settlers discovered a collection of horns belonging to wild goats thought to have died in the Flood of 1170. “Goat horn,” or “Geytenhoren,” was shortened to Giethoorn, and the name stuck. Centuries post-flood, water continues to define the village’s living history and landscape.”

When you boat, hike, or otherwise traverse the landscape, all you can hear is nature.

Getting to Giethoorn Village

NatGeo also tells you how to plan a trip: “You can get to Giethoorn by a combination of train and bus. To avoid crowds, opt for the months of April, May, June, or September, and keep in mind that weekday visits may be best. Though this “Dutch Venice” feels quite removed from capital city of Amsterdam, it’s only about 75 miles away. And a two-hour journey is well worth the feeling of traveling back in time.”

I don’t know about you, but I could certainly use some peace and quiet and a few days away from honking horns, revving motorcycles, and all the city sounds that make it hard to hear the natural world. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Visit the charming Dutch village where cars aren’t allowed” — National Geographic

WTF Fun Fact 12755 – The Caño Cristales, Colombia

The Caño Cristales is a river in Colombia that some call the “Liquid Rainbow.”

But before you start planning a trip to the Colombian National Park of La Macarena, you should know that it’s rare to see all of these colors together. For the most part, the river looks red.

What causes the colors of the Caño Cristales?

The water of the river is actually crystal clear. It’s what lies beneath that brings the river to life – quite literally.

The Caño Cristales lies at the center of three distinct ecosystems, so it’s hard for flora or fauna to thrive there. But one organism has managed to get the hang of it –

is quite clear due to a lack of biodiversity. The colors are caused by red algae called Macarenia clavigera that cling to the rocks beneath and reflect different hues depending on the depth of the water and time of year.

Care for a visit to Caño Cristales?

If you do want to visit the Caño Cristales, it’s most colorful during the algal bloom and will turn red from late May and late November, but the peak time to see the colors is between July and October.

But you cannot visit alone – it’s just too hard to get to. You’ll need a guide for the park. You also cannot swim or be anywhere near the river if you’re wearing sunscreen or any body cream, since it may kill the algae.

But according to Culture Trip, “In spite of that, there is a lot more to see and do on a tour to Caño Cristales than just seeing the red river. The river itself is located alongside the huge La Macarena National Park, which is a vast area home to savannahs, incredible rock formations, jungles, and bird and mammal watching. Most tours last three to four days and take in a variety of sights.” – WTF fun facts

Source: “10 Things to Know Before Visiting Caño Cristales, Colombia” — The Culture Trip

WTF Fun Fact 12754 – Sudan Pyramids Outnumber Egypt’s

Interested in ancient civilizations? Want to see pyramids without all the tourists? Then you may want to consider visiting the Meroe region in Sudan. In Sudan, pyramids outnumber the Egyptian kind by nearly 2:1.

Nubian pyramids in Sudan

The pyramids belong to the ancient Nubian kings, who lived in the northern part of present-day Sudan. Meroe was the capital city of the Kingdom of Kush. The structures themselves are nearly 5000 years old and are largely untouched these days.

The main source of destruction to the pyramids was an Italian “explorer” named Giuseppe Ferlini. He blew up quite a few and destroyed the tops of many structures in his hunt for the kings’ treasures in the 1880s.

What’s inside Sudan’s pyramids

These little-known Nubian tombs have paintings on the inside celebrating the kings buried inside. And since the Nubians did business with other ancient civilizations, you can see Greek and Roman, influences in the artwork.

Since the Kushite kingdom is part of the Nile River Valley, the most prominent influence is that of the Egyptians. (Of course, Egypt’s pyramids are much older, dating back to the era of the New Kingdom from the 16th century BC to the 11th century BC).

Of course, many of the tombs were raided by Ferlini during his destructive episode, and the “loot” now resides in many European museums. But they had been plundered in ancient times as well.

Preserving the past

Luckily, the Nubian pyramids are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and are generally protected from more harm. Until 2019, National Geographic funded further excavations of the site to learn more about the ancient kings and their civilization.

Much of the excavations require researchers to dive underwater to enter the structures.

According to NatGeo, “The largest and oldest pyramid at Nuri belongs to its most famous resident: the pharaoh Taharqa, a Kushite king who in the seventh century B.C. rallied his troops to the northern edges of his empire to defend Jerusalem from the Assyrians, earning him a mention in the Old Testament.” – WTF fun facts

Source: “Dive beneath the pyramids of Sudan’s black pharaohs” — National Geographic

WTF Fun Fact 12753 – The Rarity of Green Eyes

We knew green eyes were rare, but they seem even more special knowing that only 2% of people in the world have them.

Green-eyed people are everywhere

But if your friend tells you their newborn has green eyes, they’re clearly seeing something different. All babies are born with some shade of brown or blue eyes. As their eyes are exposed to more light over time, their eye color begins to change into what their own unique genetics dictates. But this can take up to three years!

It may be no surprise that most people with green eyes can be found in Ireland, Scotland, and Northern Europe (or they’re descendants of people from that area). The red hair-green eye combo is pretty classic. However, anyone can technically have green eyes, including people who are Black, Arabic, Hispanic/Latino, etc.

If you were to guess the country with the most green-eyed people, would you choose Ireland? We would have. But, in fact, Iceland is the country with the largest population of green-eyed people. in fact, over 80% of Icelanders have blue or green eyes.

The myth of the Punnett square

Another interesting thing about eye color is that it’s not as simple as we learned in high school biology (remember Punnett squares?!). Genetics plays a role, but the contribution of different genes to our melanin cells (the cells that give our skin and eyes their pigment) is more complicated than we were taught. So don’t break out the paternity test as soon as you see an unexpected eye color. Even two parents with blue eyes can have a brown-eyed child!

Eye color is actually a polygenic trait (whereas Punnett squares would have had us believe it just took two genes and no more).

People with blue eyes have genes that produce the fewest melanin cells. Green-eyed people have more melanin in their eyes than blue-eyed people. But it’s the combination of that along with the presence of a yellow pigment called lipochrome that makes eyes appear green. – WTF fun facts

Source: “12 Mind-Blowing Facts About Your Body” — Newsweek

WTF Fun Fact 12751 – Snails Can Sleep For 3 Years

You know have knowns snails live their lives at a leisurely pace, but snails can actually sleep for three years at a time!

They’re also hermaphrodites, which means they have male and female reproductive organs, so they don’t even need other snails to mate. They are the ultimate hermits.

But those three-year naps aren’t necessarily a good thing (no matter how comforting they might sound to your right now).

Snails sleep longest in summer

Some snail hibernation is called “estivation.” Hibernation is something that happens when animals sleep to conserve energy in the winter. Snails also sleep in the summer – that’s estivation. Snails can actually do both, but it mostly depends on species or geography (nevertheless, it’s still a skill we’re jealous of).

But why do snails sleep for three years?

Well, not all do. In fact, a three-year estivation typically occurs when the snail’s resources are so depleted that it’s either sleep-or-die. (Yes, we know how relatable this sounds – especially if you have little ones.)

A gooey slumber

Even if snails are estivating for much shorter periods of time, they secrete mucus that covers their whole bodies if the weather is too hot or dry. The mucus helps to protect them from hot or dry weather.

Snails need moisture to survive, so they just provide their own!

Of course, a gooey nap doesn’t protect them from predators thinking they’re dead.

Snail power naps

Snails usually sleep for about 15 hours at a time and then are awake for 30 hours. But that’s under optimal environmental conditions (which are kind of hard to come by these days, no matter what your species.)

This kind of sounds like a productive schedule, if we’re being honest. (Or maybe we could just use a very alert 30 hours to get our work done.)

Beware the sleeping snail

If you think a snail is dead, consider that it may just be taking a power nap. This is especially the case if you keep a snail as a pet. If it is stuck to the side of an aquarium but not moving, it’s likely still alive because it’s secreting mucus to make it stick.

Pet snails are unlikely to hibernate for years (mostly because if humans are providing suboptimal conditions, it’s likely bad enough to just kill the snail).

If the snail’s body is shriveled and dry (if you can see into the shell), then the snail is almost certainly dead (sorry for your loss).

And if you see a snail in the garden, well, that’s up to you and how much you want them around, but crushing it because you think it’s dead could be a deadly mistake for the snail.

– WTF fun facts

Source: “Let’s Learn Exactly How Some Snails Sleep” — AZ Pet Vet

WTF Fun Fact 12750 – The Corpus of Galen of Pergamon

Galen of Pergamon was a Greek physician working in the Roman Empire in the second century AD. It’s believed he wrote hundreds of treatises. He was a well-known figure in his own time who treated politicians (including Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius) and gladiators alike.

Galen of Pergamon’s treatises

Galen wrote so many medical treatises during his lifetime that had to distill them later on into at least three treatises. He titled these: “On My Own Books,” “On the Order of My Own Books,” and “On My Own Opinions” (the latter only survives in fragments).

He wrote about anatomy and physiology, ethics, pharmacy, medical instruments, hygiene, and even the philosophy of medicine. Much of his work was based on the Hippocratic Corpus. However, he took issue with many of the ideas in those ancient Greek works.

By writing the organizing treatises, Galen meant to set out a curriculum for aspiring doctors. This would allow them to understand the order in which to read his books and what larger philosophical points to take away from each.

Galen outside of medicine

Galen was so prolific that he even wrote on subjects that typically lie outside medicine, such as linguistics. But many of those works are lost and we only know about them via references in other treatises.

Galen is also considered an ancient philosopher and engaged with matter of logic and the texts of Aristotle, Plato, and the Stoics.

Despite all of his medical experimentation and the scientific nature of his writing, he also claimed to have knowledge of medicine thanks to the ancient Greek healing god Asclepius. He also believed that the human body was such a perfect and divine machine that it was certainly created by a greater being. However, he does not engage directly with other metaphysical questions about what else that god might believe or dictate about the world.

– WTF fun facts

Source: “Galen” — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

WTF Fun Fact 12749 – The Invention of Kidney Dialysis

The development of kidney dialysis started centuries ago. Even doctors in the ancient world understood the kidneys played an important role in filtering bodily fluids. Galen’s treatise On the Natural Faculties mentioned doctors prior to his time investigating the organ and its function.

But figuring out how to replicate the filtering function of the kidneys didn’t happen until the 1800s when a Scottish chemist named Thomas Graham realized he could create a membrane to act as a filter to “clean” some bodily fluids (though he wasn’t exactly spot on about what he was filtering out).

Despite sometimes being referred to as the “Father of Dialysis,” his discoveries weren’t kidney-related. In fact, for decades, scientists were more concerned with trying to filter blood for trauma patients during surgery. That’s because they didn’t have blood banks, so when someone lost blood, they needed to preserve it for the patient but also needed a way of cleaning it up first.

Blood dialysis was performed on animals in the early 20th century, and the use of blood thinners was already in use to keep it from clotting (which is necessary if you want to put it back in the body!).

In 1924, a German doctor named Georg Haas realized the possibilities of dialysis for kidney patients. Since our kidneys are responsible for filtering out impurities, those in kidney failure need some extra help.

Haas seems to have had around six patients that used his dialysis machine, but it wasn’t quite ready for prime time yet. All of those patients died of kidney failure (possibly as a result of the dialysis not filtering adequately).

The “drum kidney” was introduced in 1945 by a Dutch doctor Willem Kolff, and because materials science was more advanced, the plastics and other materials he had at his disposal made the machine more effective for cleaning bodily fluids (and didn’t leach its own materials into patients either).

Before we get to today’s modern-day dialysis machines, there were many more people involved in the invention of dialysis – including chemists and physicians that improved upon past technology:

– Swedish chemist Nils Alwall designed a machine to both clean and drain blood
– American scientist Belding Scribner had the dialysis process uninterrupted so the body would not be severely lacking in blood during the dialysis treatment
– Michael Brescia and James Cimino found a way to make Scribner’s invention work with needles so patients didn’t need to maintain an open wound that might be prone to infection

And these are just the preliminary steps we took on our way to modern kidney dialysis!

– WTF fun facts

Source: “History of the kidney disease treatment” — St. George’s Kidney Patients Association

WTF Fun Fact 12748 – Koala Bears Have Fingerprints

Koala bears have fingerprints just like apes and humans. This is surprising since our last common ancestor lived over 100 million years ago.

Nevertheless, koalas have retained their unique fingerprints.

We tend to think of fingerprints as solely a product of our criminal justice system. And yet, those little lines on our fingers actually serve a purpose besides putting us at a crime scene.

The purpose of fingerprints

Our fingerprints help us grab and feel objects, and researchers believe they help our sense of touch. This isn’t so important to us anymore, but it is helpful to animals who can use touch sensations to judge whether leaves, for example, belong to the right tree.

Our fingerprints actually cause little vibrations when we run them over objects. And since koalas really only eat eucalyptus, they like to be sure they’re in the midst of the right kind of buffet before they start chowing down.

Fingerprints are unique

Since you can’t really tell a koala’s fingerprint from a human’s, at least in terms of patterns, they may be the perfect sidekick for a crime scene. There’s no koala bear fingerprint database, so you can pretty much just let them touch everything to upend an investigation (just kidding – don’t try this at home – or anywhere else for that matter).

However, if a koala at a zoo has committed a crime, theoretically, you could fingerprint the residents to figure out whodunnit. We don’t think that’s ever been a necessity, but it sounds like a good premise for a children’s crime novel (if those existed).

Koalas bears have fingerprints and other animals have…

While koala bears have human-like fingerprints, other animals have identifying marks on their paw pads as well.

According to New Scientist (cited below):

Individual cats and dogs, for example, have unique whisker patterns. Zebras have distinct stripe arrangements and individual leopards and spotted dolphins have their own spot patterns. Humpback whales also have unique markings on the underside of their tails.”

Who knew? – WTF fun facts

Source: “Do other animals have fingerprints? And what purpose do they serve?” — New Scientist

WTF Fun Fact 12747 – Flamingos Eat Upside Down

Because of the way their heads and beaks are built, flamingos eat upside down. Well, at least that’s how their heads are positioned.

Flamingo beaks scoop up water in the areas where they feed. Then, that water is processed through a structure called the lamellae, which acts as a filter. It ensures that water, sand, and other less tasty things are then expelled back into the water while the marine creatures (such as shrimp and brine flies) that flamingos eat are trapped inside. (Another fun fact: this food is also what makes flamingos pink!)

Flamingo anatomy

A flamingo’s tongue is designed to push the water back out through these filtration mechanisms.

According to the San Diego Zoo, “Greater and Chilean flamingos are larger and feed mostly on invertebrates such as brine flies, shrimps, and mollusks. They get these food items from the bottom mud by wading in shallow water. Sometimes they swim to get their food and sometimes by ‘upending’ (tail feathers in the air, head underwater) like ducks.”

It all happens quite fast, but if you take a look at how a flamingo is built, you’ll see that eating upside down is really the only way.

Of course, flamingos breathe air, which means that while they’re attempting to feed, they need to hold their breath – something they can do for up to a few minutes at a time. They need to poke their heads up every now and then to get more oxygen.

Flamingos eat upside down even on a zoo diet

According to the zoo, their flamingos get a special diet with all the nutrients they need. But even in these cases, they still use the same upside down stature to take in their food:

“At the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, the flamingos are fed a special pellet diet that is made for zoo flamingos. This food has all the nutrients the flamingos need and a pigment that helps keep them “in the pink.” To allow the flamingos to eat in their normal way (taking in water and then pumping it back out), a water source just for feeding is near their food so they can get a “beakful” of water and then food—just like they would in the wild.”

Flamingo mysteries

Flamingos are interesting creatures and there are still some habits we can’t explain – such as why they sometimes stand on one foot. No one has definitively explained that behavior yet. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Flamingo” – The San Diego Zoo